Fox Sports’s Erin Andrews is one of the top sideline reporters covering the NFL—but that wasn’t always the case.
Like most journalists, she started as a young and inexperienced reporter. During that time in her career, an NFL player once made her cry, she revealed on Friday’s episode of the Calm Down podcast.
A listener sent in a question asking whether Andrews ever had cried while on the job, and she set the scene. She was 19 or 20 years old and was freelancing for an Orlando media outlet that wanted her to get sound from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“A particular player was so nasty to me,” Andrew recalled. “He physically turned his back away from me in the middle of his scrum. He also told me to go back, rehearse my question, and come back when I was ready. I was mortified.”
Andrews went on to explain that she did slip up with her question and stumbled with her words, but she did practice beforehand.
“I instantly started having tears come down my face, and two players in particular, Derrick Brooks and John Lynch, saw it, pulled me over, and said, ‘What do you need?’”
She didn’t name the player who called her out, but she did show appreciation to the two eventual Pro Football Hall of Famers who showed her compassion and professionalism when she needed it most.
